The Vessel and the Filter

“The Ves­sel and the Fil­ter” cap­ti­vat­ing­ly explores a metaphor­i­cal con­cept where each indi­vid­ual pos­sess­es an inter­nal con­tain­er, or ‘ves­sel,’ which inces­sant­ly accrues data encom­pass­ing thoughts, emo­tions, dreams, and life expe­ri­ences. This influx of infor­ma­tion doesn’t direct­ly per­me­ate the ves­sel; it under­goes fil­tra­tion, a process unique­ly tai­lored to each per­son. This fil­tra­tion sys­tem ensures that not all infor­ma­tion suc­cess­ful­ly breach­es the ves­sel, and the infor­ma­tion that does is often altered in the process.

This chap­ter delves into the notion that human beings innate­ly curate the world’s vast data stream, hon­ing in on infor­ma­tion deemed essen­tial or par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigu­ing, while dis­re­gard­ing the remain­der. It sug­gests that from an ear­ly age, we are con­di­tioned to selec­tive­ly engage with our envi­ron­ment, a sur­vival mech­a­nism to pre­vent sen­so­ry over­load and to main­tain focus on what is imme­di­ate­ly rel­e­vant.

The nar­ra­tive fur­ther explores how artists strive to recap­ture a child­like sense of won­der, to view the world with fresh eyes free from the con­straints of util­i­ty or sur­vival. This artis­tic endeav­or aims to soft­en the rigid­i­ty of per­son­al nar­ra­tives shaped by fil­tered expe­ri­ences, there­by embrac­ing a broad­er spec­trum of infor­ma­tion that lies beyond the con­fines of exist­ing beliefs.

The con­cept extends to the cre­ative process itself, posit­ing it as an act of select­ing and repur­pos­ing the con­tents of one’s vessel—transformed and informed by per­son­al filters—into var­i­ous forms of expres­sion. These cre­ations in turn become part of the glob­al tapes­try of data, offer­ing new source mate­r­i­al for the ves­sels of oth­ers.

It con­cludes with a pow­er­ful notion: while the inter­play between the source, the fil­ter, and the ves­sel occurs some­what autonomous­ly, indi­vid­u­als can, through delib­er­ate effort and train­ing, expand their capac­i­ty to receive and engage with a greater vol­ume of infor­ma­tion. This is not mere­ly a pas­sive recep­tion of data but an active, con­scious expan­sion of one’s abil­i­ty to per­ceive, under­stand, and ulti­mate­ly cre­ate, imply­ing that alter­ing our inter­nal ‘instru­ments’ holds the key to unlock­ing pro­found shifts in per­cep­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty.